Whats happening in the Graveyard Shift

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Whats happening in the Graveyard Shift?

• Not covering everything in WCAG 2.0
• Focusing on
• some of the good points
• and some of the bad!
• Looking at
• Implications on design
• How it can/might be adopted
• Will describe imagery on screen
• General discussion/bitching

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Whos who Andy Clarke

• The modfather, wasp-like designer of note (and no
  taking the Mickey)

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Whos who Patrick Lauke

• Salfords finest accessibility-aware webmaster
  working for a University
• Receives coded messages about accessibility from
  a strange growth on the back of his head

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Whos who Gez Lemon

• When life deals you a lemon, make a lemon
  meringue pie
• Web developer for Paciello Group and prolific
  maker of accessibility tools widgets

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Whos who Ian Lloyd

• The Accessify guy
• Working for Nationwide since time began
• Itinerant traveller and VW nut
• Face made entirely of rubber

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WaSP ATF

• Either by chance or design, we are all ATF
  members
• WaSP Web Standards Project
• ATF Accessibility Task Force

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Not that ATF
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WCAG A brief history

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG (or
  wuh-cag!)
• Version 1.0 released in 1999
• Ancient in Internet years
• Much of it out-of-date/irrelevant
• Other accessibility standards (e.g. section
  508)
• WCAG too wide-reaching for some implementations
• Note PAS 78 not a variant of WCAG/508

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WCAG 2.0 Philosophy behind the change

• Technology-agnostic
• not just guidelines for browsers
• Non browser-specific terminology generic
  terminology
• P.O.U.R. Web site/page should be
• Perceivable (cater for sense deficiencies)
• Operable (how you control items)
• Understandable (language, jargon etc)
• Robust (compatibility with current/future tech)

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WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 compared

• WCAG 1.0
• 2.1 Ensure that all information conveyed with
  color is also available without color, for
  example from context or markup
• WCAG 2.0
• 1.3.2 Any information that is conveyed by
  color is also visually evident without color
• Looks simple enough? Not always

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WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 compared

• WCAG 1.0
• 13.1 Clearly identify the target of each link
• WCAG 2.0
• 2.4.4 Each link is programmatically associated
  with text from which its purpose can be
  determined
• Trans write meaningful link phrases
• take a look at our product range rather than
• click here to view our products

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WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 compared

• WCAG 1.0
• 3.6 Mark up lists and list items properly
• WCAG 2.0
• 1.3.1 Information and relationships conveyed
  through presentation can be programmatically
  determined and notification of changes to these
  is available to user agents, including assistive
  technologies

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WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 compared

• Translation Oh crap, Ive given up the will to
  live. Pass me a beer, Im gonna watch telly
  instead

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New in WCAG 2.0

• Baselines
• Define a set of technologies that conformance
  claim is based on
• Scoping
• Define areas on a site that are outside of
  accessibility conformance claim
• Success criteria
• Not exactly new but a reinvention of priority
  levels
• More documentation

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New documentation in WCAG 2.0

• Hand-over to Patrick to explain some of the other
  documents, how they relate to each other,
  purposes of each other
• Not bitching about them at this point all in
  due course!

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WCAG 2.0 - normative

• Core WCAG 2.0 defines
• The 4 principles (P.O.U.R.)
• New terminology used (Rosetta stone?)
• Conformance (levels, baseline, scoping)
• Principles Guidelines Success Criteria
• Appendices (including comparison between WCAG 1
  checkpoints and WCAG 2 SC)
• The only normative document.

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WCAG 2.0 informative

• Supporting documents
• Understanding WCAG 2.0
• Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• About Baselines for WCAG 2.0
• Cooking with WCAG 2.0
• Application notes
• Liable to change (hence not normative).

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Understanding WCAG 2.0

• For each guideline
• Intent of the guideline (what's the problem, why
  do we need to address it?)
• Advisory techniques (nice to have, but no SC
  covers them)
• How to meet the Success Criteria
• Key terms (newspeak cheat sheet?)
• Intent of SC
• Techniques for addressing SC (links to
  Techniques... document)
• Benefits (so if we address this, why is it
  better?)
• Examples

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Techniques for WCAG 2.0

• Big unwieldy document at this point
• Common failures (just to start on positive
  note...)
• Client-side scripting techniques
• CSS techniques
• General techniques (however you want to
  implement)
• HTML techniques
• Server-side techniques
• SMIL techniques (who here has done SMIL?)
• Plain text techniques
• Confusingly, WAI has link to old General
  Techniques... in navigation...

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About Baselines for WCAG 2.0

• What are baselines (with annotated examples)
• Who sets the baseline
• How can developers choose a baseline
• Examples of conformance claims
• And the ever popular Vertical and Horizontal
  Scoping in Conformance Statements

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Cooking with WCAG 2.0
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Application notes

• In the future ... Application Notes would
  provide detailed guidance for a specific topic
  .... For example, an Application Note on forms
  would include WCAG 2.0 success criteria,
  techniques, and strategies for developing
  accessible forms.
• Will be produced by Education and Outreach
  Working Group (EOWG)

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Other WAI guidelines

• Of course other parts of the accessibility
  equation need to be in place
• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG)
  also currently 2.0 WD and based on WCAG 2.0
• User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG)

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The Improvements in WCAG 2.0

• Gez to pick out some of the improvements in WCAG
  2.0, possible with some examples?

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Whats bad about WCAG 2.0

• Beginning with Patrick
• Then Andy
• Then Ian

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Language of WCAG 2.0

• Requirements of WCAG 2.0
• WCAG 2.0 deliverables must address the needs of
  a variety of readers, including people who wish
  to
• Create accessible, innovative Web sites.
• Create policies related to Web accessibility.
• Assess whether a Web site conforms to the
  guidelines.
• Develop authoring tools, user agents, or
  evaluation and repair tools.
• Teach principles of accessible Web content.

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Language of WCAG 2.0 (cont.)

• WCAG 2.0 itself
• These informative documents are written to be
  used by a diverse audience, including but not
  limited to
• people who create Web content
• developers who write code
• quality assurance or accessibility evaluators
• policy makers
• managers
• users

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Language of WCAG 2.0 (cont.)

• Why are the guidelines and documents currently so
  difficult to understand?
• To remain tech-agnostic, invented a whole new
  language (full of sound and clatter, signifying
  nothing)
• Even seasoned experts can't understand it
• Programmatically determined? Authored unit?
  Authored content? Even...mechanism?

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Mechanism in WCAG 2.0

• process or technique for achieving a result
• SC 2.4.1 A mechanism is available to bypass
  blocks of content that are repeated on multiple
  Web units.
• On first reading do I need to now add skip links
  to everything?
• No, even just marking a navigation up as a list
  counts as a mechanism!?

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Implementing WCAG 2.0

• Study WCAG 2.0, support documents, consult your
  friends on WAI WG and some things may become
  clearer
• University setup central web team and devolved
  web authors
• How can I expect web authors (not just
  professionals, but part-time lecturers,
  technicians, enthusiasts) to implement WCAG 2.0?
• Here, read this...and this...see you in a few
  months once you master the secret art of the
  Wu-Kag-Clan

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Implementing WCAG 2.0 (cont.)

• How I implemented WCAG 1.0 never claim
  compliance
• Own interpretation (removed most Until user
  agents...)
• And for WCAG 2.0?
• Shawn Lawton Henry Go test with users - forget
  the specs
• Writing own interpretation of WCAG 2.0, making it
  tech-specific to our baseline and adding own
  interpretation/preferred method (mechanism?)

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WCAG 2.0 and the designer

• Andy to cover off impact of some specific points
  on design how will it adversely affect design,
  how might it improve design (standardising
  techniques that some designers have resisted til
  now?)

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• Back to ian

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Mighty Joe Clarke (the 800lb Gorilla)

• To Hell with WCAG 2.0
• Has alerted many to issues with WCAG 2.0 (a good
  thing)
• Seems to have been catalyst for last call
  extension
• WCAG Samurai
• Closed group
• A good or bad thing?
• Could it derail WCAG 2.0?

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Summing up

• WCAG 2.0 not yet a done deal
• But only if you have your say
• http//tinyurl.com/hmtus (WCAG 2.0 comment form)
• Email to public-comments-wcag20_at_w3.org
• You are allowed to criticise!
• Non-participation in WCAG working group does not
  preclude you from having your say

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So then

• Any questions?